Specialized Aims to Make Bicycling Less of a Drag With New Wind Tunnel

Chris Yu, an aerodynamics R&D engineer at Specialized Bicycle Components, provides a sense of scale against the six six-foot fans that can blow as much as 800,000 cubic feet of air per minute through the company's new wind tunnel. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The six fans are more than capable of simulating speeds even the best rider can achieve. "Our target was 30 mph, so we built in plenty of safety factor so we could safely hit that," Yu says. “There's a good chance it can run faster than that. We won’t know until we get in there and turn it on." Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

Specialized built the carbon fiber bells that channel air through the tunnel, which is 100-feet long and fills a building near the company's HQ in Morgan Hill. "We're moving away from consumer-level R&D here to Formula 1-level R&D," says aero engineer Mark Cote. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

The tunnel, shown here under construction last winter, is 100 feet long. Just 30 feet is used for testing bicycles and components. The rest of it directs and manages airflow through the ambient air system. There's already a long list of projects slated for the tunnel. "Everyone wants a piece of the action," Yu says. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

The design department is a bright and colorful place, and a company museum of sorts. Current and past models, along with concepts, design studies and one-off flights of fancy hang from the ceiling and line the hallways. The walls are decorated with photographs of everything from vintage Formula 1 cars to spaceships. "We're inspired by anything that looks fast or is fast," says company design director Robert Egger. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

A ride dummy, ready for travel. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

Everything Specialized makes is designed in-house, and most of it is built in Taiwan. Creating a distinctive visual style is as big a challenge as designing innovative products, said Frank Aldorf, the company's chief branding officer. With that in mind, the company's attitude seems to be "go big or go home." The large "S" logo is a case in point. "We're very bold in branding our bikes," Aldorf said. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

Ideas go from sketch to prototype quickly, with little in the way of computer-aided design. "We have a great model shop, a great machine shop and 3D printing," Egger said "If we have an idea, we just start making things." Here, employees refine the design of a helmet, which is being rendered in clay behind that screen (they wouldn't let photograph it). Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

Every surface of Egger's workspace is covered with drawings, sketches, photographs and prototypes in various stages of completion. He's been with the company for 26 years and finds "the biggest challenge is reinventing the wheel. At some level, the bicycle hasn't really changed in more than 130 years. We're working inside a pretty small box: two wheels, a seat, handlebars. But we've kept moving them forward." Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

There are bikes everywhere on the campus, including the cafeteria. We lost track of how many times employees offered some variation on "We love bikes" or "We're serious about cycling." It's a mantra. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

The lunchtime ride draws a couple of dozen people, who spend about an hour riding anywhere from 12 to 26 miles. Wednesday is always the longest ride, and everyone from the newest employee to the CEO gets in at least a few rides week. "We tell our employees to become better riders, because that makes us better innovators," said facilities manager Alfredo Echauri. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

Even the restrooms are decorated with references to bike culture. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

The test lab features six pneumatic rigs that bend, twist and pull to test the durability, compliance and ride quality of every product. Although strength testing is vital, comfort and responsiveness are no less important, and most of the lab's work focuses on dynamic tuning. "Trying to find the right balance is hard," said engineer Sam Pickman. "You want to maximize power transfer and efficiency, but you also want to have the right balance of handling, compliance and comfort. That's where the science comes in." Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

When the downtube on this Ruby frame blew, it sounded like a gunshot. "We don't actually publicize our testing threshold for this particular test," Pickman said. "But I can tell you that when the frame broke, it was well above that threshold."

Clint Mattacola, who works in helmet research and development, and downhill racer Mitch Ropelato fine-tune the fit of a new helmet. When Specialized was founded in 1974, it sold components imported from Europe. It started making tires in 1976 and the Allez road bike in 1979. The Stumpjumper came along in 1981 and was the first mass-produced mountain bike on the market. Today the company offers everything from water bottles and helmets to complete bikes and even an electric bicycle. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

The crew hits the road for a 23-mile ride around Uvas Reservoir. "Everybody rides," Aldorf says. "We're a company of riders, for riders. We're making products for us." Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired

MORGAN HILL, California — For years, bicycle makers have squeezed more speed and efficiency out of their products by shaving weight to the minimums set by cycling’s ruling bodies. But to really improve a bike, whether it’s for riding in the peloton or the park, you have to reduce aerodynamic drag.

Victories in this constant fight are measured in fractions of a second saved per kilometer. Tiny improvements to be sure, but they add up quickly during a 40-kilometer time trial or a 200-kilometer stage of, say, the AMGEN Tour of California. But you don’t have to be Bert Grabsch or Sylvain Chavanel to benefit from this. Aerodynamics is, at the bottom line, about making it easier to go further or faster while riding more efficiently and comfortably.

Doing this is harder than it sounds because bike manufacturers haven’t had many options for wind tunnels beyond the 1,000-horsepower behemoths designed for race cars and motorcycles; they can blast 1.7 million cubic feet of air a minute and simulate triple-digit speed. That’s so far beyond what cyclists would experience that getting accurate data is tricky.

“All the equipment is tuned for a higher speed regimen than is suitable for us,” says Chris Yu, an aerodynamics engineer at Specialized Bicycle Components. “We’re barely above the noise.”

So Specialized is building a better tunnel. It has a lighter touch — six 6-foot fixed-pitch fans, each driven by a 75-horsepower motor, pushing as much as 800,000 cubic feet of air per minute. It’s more than enough to simulate the 30-mph speeds that top riders achieve, but the 30-foot test section (the tunnel is 100 feet long) is still wide and long enough to do real research. It can accommodate dynamic biking scenarios like changing wind conditions, fit teams of up to nine riders and provide “cleaner, more granular data” than ever before.

“We’ll be able to more accurately test, and simulate, what riders are actually feeling and experiencing,” Yu says. “We can now look at the entire strategy of riding.”

Yu, an avid cyclist, was intimately involved in designing the tunnel, which looks a lot like the one he designed in seventh grade for the Santa Clara County science fair.

“Here I am, all these years later, and we’ve actually built it,” he said. “This has been a top-secret project. No one outside the building knows about it. And I can’t wait to show them.”

Specialized gave us a behind-the-scenes peek at the construction of the wind tunnel, and a look at the culture of the company.